. . . an examination of things of interest to jad

About

I’ve got a google doc full of half-finished paragraphs here and I’m trying to tie them together. I’m pretty good about blabbing on about any particular topic until everyone politely excuses themselves, but I’m not very comfortable talking about myself. Here goes: I’m an over-educated, highly privileged white male. I spent my early 20s trying to make machines think and my late 20s as a societal dropout snowboarding in VT. I am married to my life’s love–a woman of whom I am not worthy. Frequently, after agonizing for months, I will come to a position that she confidently posited at the very beginning. She is my intellectual and emotional superior. Her name is Alisa and she is always right.

As to where I come from belief-wise. I’ve travelled a long road from the evangelical warmongering patriotism of my childhood, through teen-aged objectivism turned liberalism (it was mind-bending for me as well), radical environmentalism, socialism, marxism, and then several flavors of anarchism. At some point I decided to throw everything out and start over from scratch.

To summarize, I believe in reality as it can be demonstrated to exist. I work from the assumption that I exist. I further assume that my senses convey to me a reasonably accurate reflection of a objective reality. The basic tenets of logic encode basic principles of the physical world and allow us to use our reason to determine the validity of truth claims.

Besides that, I try to keep an open mind.

I am interested in reading, thinking, and talking about social structures. I would like to see a world of peace, justice and universal human flourishing (who wouldn’t? Put your hands down). I’ve spent a long time exploring ethical, economic, philosophical, and social systems of thought and the institutions they give rise to. Lately, I’ve been motivated to look around a bit more for people with similar interests.

Lately, I’ve been recording my thoughts on my bike ride to work. I edit out the panting and long pauses and post the rest as The Bikecast.